Homosexual Rights: MPs give mass backing to gay sex at 16

PLANS TO reduce the age of consent for homosexuals to 16 came closer to reality yesterday as MPs backed the measure overwhelmingly for the second time in seven months.

The Government is seeking to push through the package as part of the Sexual Offences Bill - which will include guidelines to protect youths aged 16 and 17 who are in care, boarding schools or the armed forces - after peers overturned the first Commons vote in July.

Ministers hope such statutory safeguards will persuade peers to back the moves by bowing to their concerns about young people who could have their trust abused. The peers voted down the age-of-consent measure last year when it was contained in the Crime and Disorder Bill, despite its big Commons majority.

The Government had offered a vote on the issue after the European Commission of Human Rights ruled that an unequal age of consent was a violation of privacy laws and anti-discrimination clauses of the European Convention on Human Rights. The three main party leaders and almost all the Cabinet voted for the change.

Opening the new Bill's second reading debate, which will be decided in a free vote, Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, argued for the age reduction because he believed in "equality before the law".

Offering assurances to protect vulnerable teenagers, he said a new offence of abuse of trust would be introduced and codes of conduct strengthened to prevent abuse in other areas such as the voluntary sector.

The Bill was "a good measure, which balances the fundamental need to ensure young people are adequately protected with the right which all our citizens should have to equality before the law."

Mr Straw said the Bill would reduce the age of consent to 16 for male homosexuals in England, Wales and Scotland and to 17 in Northern Ireland, equalising it with that for heterosexuals in each part of the UK.

"This is not a question of encouraging one lifestyle as against another or of encouraging young people to have sex. Far from it: instead, it is a question of equality before the law. It is not, in my personal view, right for the law to discriminate against the homosexual," he said.

But Desmond Swayne, Tory MP for New Forest West, said the law should restrain activity that the majority viewed as "undesirable or unnatural", adding: "People do have the choice to maintain self- discipline."

Replying, Mr Straw made clear there was no evidence that when homosexual acts were illegal at any age, this cut the number of people engaging in them. It led to "huge human unhappiness and very great injustice".

An abuse of trust could occur "where someone in a position of authority uses their influence or power, either deliberately or unintentionally, to enter into an ostensibly consensual sexual relationship with someone over whom they are in a position of authority".

The shadow home secretary, Sir Norman Fowler, told MPs that recent polls proved the public was as a whole opposed to a lowering of the age of consent when it came "nearer and nearer to what they regard as childhood".

However strongly MPs felt on the issue, they "would do well to take note" of public opinion, he said, adding: "I do not believe that there is any evidence to suggest that public opinion is unreasonable on this issue of the age of consent.

"I don't believe their vote indicates an inherent prejudice against the gay community; rather, it is the case that many of the public who are polled are parents themselves and are concerned about the possible impact that a change in the law could have on 16 and 17-year-olds in this country."

The public felt there was a responsibility on adults to "do everything in our power" to avert the risk of children being abused.

"What I am arguing is that the position should not be made worse and the risk should not be made greater," he said.

Joe Ashton, Labour MP for Bassetlaw, whose amendment last year inspired the Government to redraft its plans, welcomed the Bill.

He said Mr Straw had done a "magnificent job in listening to the backbenchers in the House and the mood of the House, which was perhaps misunderstood last June".